Amsterdam-Munich-Johannesberg-Mauritius-Reunion...but I finally made it!

I left wednesday and arrived friday morning after a number of hours of travel. I got picked up by Youri and Virginie (whom I met at Mada) and i'm here to stay for 3 amazing weeks. I also met up with Arnaud, the frenchman who I met in Mada too. Arnaud and I set off saturday morning to climb the highest peak here on the island 'Le piton des neiges', though there is rarely now (maybe once it happened). We left from sea level and hiked about 4/5 hours up to the refuge at 2500 meters where we slept. it was tiring and i must've done about a thousands squats and lunges on the way up! We met some nice people and most people got up at 3am to hike the last bit for sunrise. My legs were feeling tired, but it was so worth it in the end! We could literally see the ocean on both sides of the island (seeing as its about 90kmx50kms) and the clouds were over by the volcano and falling over the cliffs..just incredible. We hiked back all the way down a different way, which was even steeper but amazing all the same.

The following day we decided to go see the volcano (Piton de Fournaise) but we got there at about 3pm so we couldn't hike all the way up. The clouds were nice enough to let us see everything. I will definitely be going back up there for a nice loonngg 20km hike around the craters and volcano self. We hiked down onto the lava fields and sat in a crater for a while then decided to head home. I suppose not everyone can say they've done that I decided the next day to spend it with Virginie on the beach..mostly to let my body recover!

I have yet to go into a lava tunnel and explore some waterfalls and towns, but so far the island has been incredible! It's definitely not everywhere where you can go from 30+ degrees to 15 degrees in a hour and have drastically different landscapes..forests, cows in fields, tropical jungle, the beach...wow! there's so much french influence (duh!) but the food is delicious, I can sort of (not really) understand Creole, and you can't beat french boulangeries